Bivalve Symposium, World Congress of Malacology

A symposium entitled “Bivalves - A Look at the Branches” was organized for the World Congress of Malacology in Perth, Western Australia, in July 2004. The intent was to explore the major branches of Bivalvia, with each contributor introducing diversity and characters of the group, and discussing hypotheses of relationships, resulting classifications, and unresolved issues for future research. For this, we invited a small group of specialists, ranging from seasoned investigators to up-and-coming graduate student researchers, who each “represented” one or several major branches. The speakers (minus their coauthors) included Graham Oliver (Arcoidea), Ilya Tëmkin (Pterioidea), Thomas Waller (Pectinoidea), Daniel Graf (Paleoheterodonta), Peter Middlefart (Galeommatoidea), John Taylor (Lucinoidea), Paula Mikkelsen (Veneroidea), Emily Glover (Lucinoidea), and Elizabeth Harper (Anomalodesmata). This symposium and its 2006 proceedings volume in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (a peer-reviewed journal, as our workshop volumes have been) provide a solid step forward in bivalve systematics, and through the “what's needed” component of each paper, entice other colleagues, and particularly upcoming students, to take a closer look at marine bivalves.